Chapter 25
Lucas and Nadya made their statements, and signed them. No perjury was committed, although an observer from Mars might have observed that not all possible questions had been asked.
There had been no way, the city attorney said, to completely avoid the question of a relationship between Nadya and Reasons, but the relationship had been disposed of with two questions and two short answers, which had dismissed the possibility that a personal relationship had in any way contributed to the murder.
Reasons, the attorney concluded, had been killed on the job when a professional assassin, armed with a silenced pistol, had gone to Nadya's room to kill her, and instead, had encountered Reasons, who'd died protecting Nadya. Several throats were cleared, briefcases were stuffed, and the lights turned out.
Andreno called from Hibbing, said there was no action at Walther's house, and Lucas ordered him back to Duluth to stay with Nadya overnight.
Kelly, the cop originally assigned to the murder of Mary Wheaton, stopped to chat with Lucas on the way out the door after the statements were given. Lucas mentioned that he was looking for a drunk named Roger Walther, but that Walther had never been arrested, and was no longer living at the house listed on his driver's license.
'I'll ask around,' Kelly said. 'Know anything else about him?'
'Not much… whacked his wife a couple times, no charges. He was the local hockey hero in Hibbing, played with UMD…'
'Well, shit, I know a guy named Reggie Carpenter who knows every single asshole who ever got ice time up there… He might be able to help you out.'
'Where's he live?'
'Actually, he plays piano at T-Bone Logan's Lakeside Lumber Emporium and Saloon. He oughta be there now.'
'Place with a name like that, you wouldn't see many tourists,' Lucas suggested.
Kelly snorted: 'There never was a T-Bone Logan, it's not on the lakeside, it was built six years ago by a doctor's group from Chicago outa fake logs, never had anything to do with lumber, and they charge nine bucks for a martini which, when they bring it to you, turns out to be purple, or maroon, or some fuckin' thing. What do you think?'
A gentle drizzle was falling as they drove.
'Feel the winter coming,' Kelly said.
'This isn't it, though,' Lucas said. 'Not yet.' Sometime in September, a bone-crunching cold front usually came through, pointing at snow, if not actually delivering any. This drizzle still contained a hint of warmth.
'You ski?'
'Ah, every once in a while. I've got a place over in Sawyer County, Hayward, I got a couple of sleds…'
They talked snow and cabins and snowmobiles until they pulled into the bar.
T-Bone Logan's was as Kelly said, a tourist trap with log walls and, inside, axes and saws and kerosene lanterns mounted overhead, and big photos of lumberjacks in old-timey logging camps. The tabletops were made out of split pine logs with clear finishes; the place smelled of wet-sauce ribs and beans.
Carpenter, the piano player, was a Dagwood-looking man, pale, slender, balding, with cheap false teeth that tended to clack when he talked, and a sprinkling of dandruff on his black sport coat. Lucas and Kelly got beer from the bar and carried it over to the piano and waited while Carpenter finished wending his way through an overfruited version of 'Stardust,' Carpenter signaling his friendship to Kelly with his eyebrows.
When he finished the song, he slid over to the side of the piano bench and said, 'How's it going, Officer Kelly?'
'How many telephones you got now, Reggie?'
'Just the one cell phone,' Carpenter said. 'Don't even have one in my house.'
'You're sure?'
'Absolutely,' Carpenter said, beaming at Kelly.
Kelly said to Lucas, 'Reggie used to take the occasional bet.'
'Ah.'
'In the month of November nineteen ninety-nine, he took bets on one thousand seven hundred and fifty-six occasions,' Kelly continued.
'I never would have suspected,' Lucas said.
'I was just… a little thoughtless,' Carpenter said. 'So what's going on?'
'UMD hockey,' Kelly said. 'Do you remember a guy named Roger Walther? Would have been a second-stringer, maybe… what? Twenty-some years ago?'
Carpenter frowned, tinkled the high C key a few times, then nodded, 'Yeah… I do. He played forward, but he was a little slow with the stick, and about six feet short getting down the ice. But he could play. What'd he do?'
'Have you seen him?' Lucas asked.
'No, not for years. I think-I think, but I'm not sure-that he once was selling cars at Landry's, but that would have been years ago.'
'Not since.'
'Nope. What'd he do?'
'What's he like, physically?' Lucas asked. 'Fast? Big? Wide? Strong?'
'About like you,' Carpenter said to Lucas. 'Maybe an inch shorter, a couple of pounds heavier.'
'You think he might be a runner?' Lucas asked. 'Like to jog, and so on?'
'I don't know. He was a college-level jock. So probably. What'd he do, anyway?'
'Thanks for your help,' Kelly said. 'Stick with the one phone, huh?'
They had a few drinks, and Lucas eventually got back to the hotel and slept like a rock.
The next morning, he was in the shower, feeling a little rocky from the alcohol, when the first call came in, from John Terry, the Virginia police chief.
'We got a line on Roger Walther. He's living with a woman named Kelly Harbinson just out west of town. I got an address…'
Lucas took the address and said, 'Thanks. I'll check it out.'
Andreno and Nadya came over for breakfast. The rain was still falling, and they all looked out over the lake as he told them about the call; there were no boats visible at all, and no separation between lake and sky. 'I'm getting pretty damned tired of driving back and forth,' Lucas said. 'Everything is up on the Range-I'm gonna check out of here tomorrow morning and find a place up there.'
'Me also,' Nadya said. 'This process feels like it is coming to an end.'
Andreno nodded. 'Roger'll give us something. Has to. Did you see the paper this morning?'
'The Star Tribune,' Lucas said.
'The local paper has a story from Spivak's lawyer. You're gonna take some pressure at the preliminary hearing.'
'We've got enough for the preliminary,' Lucas said.
'Be a pretty fucked-up trial, though,' Andreno said.
'Somebody'll crack before we get to trial. I hope.'
With the focus on Roger Walther, they all rode to Virginia together. Lucas and Andreno chatted about another case they'd worked on, in St. Louis, and they compared promotion and salary practices with Nadya. Nadya's salary was small by American standards, but she paid almost nothing for housing, medical care, insurance, or any of the other dozens of possibilities that Americans dealt with. The one problem, she said, was food. 'We don't eat so much in restaurants as you do; and the food in restaurants that I can afford is not so good anyway.'
'And you don't have so many signs,' Lucas said.
She laughed, the first time Lucas had heard her laugh since Reasons was killed. 'You are ridiculous here. When we stopped to buy gasoline, on one pump, there were twenty-two signs. On one pump!'
'I saw you counting,' Lucas said.
'Stickers,' Andreno said. 'They're called stickers.'
